Setup Terms
Updated 8 months ago
Complexity:
Audience: Loan Servicer or Collector, Loan Servicing/Collections Managers, Accounting, Compliance
Introduction
There may be times when you need an understanding of the configuration of a loan, or when you need to configure a loan in a specific way. Setup Terms within a loan are where you will go to look at or change the configuration your loan.
When you create a loan, you will need to configure the loan terms and settings that determine how the loan will accrue interest, calculate escrow, and define what the loan is in general. Setup Terms is where you will enter this information. When you are first creating a loan, you will be taken to the loan terms automatically after your initially saving the loan. If the loan has already been created, you can view information about the loan by navigating to Account Setup > Setup Terms within the loan.
How Setup Terms Work
Setup Terms has both an edit view and and activated view. The edit view lets you enter data into each of the following areas: Loan Terms, Escrow Calculator, Additional Information, and Late Fee Configuration when you are creating or editing a loan.
As you might guess from the name, the activated view is only available for loans that have been activated. It will show you a summary of the numbers for the loan including: APR, Finance Charge, the Amount Financed, the Total of Payments, and the Total Sales Price. This view also includes a simple version of the payment schedule. For a more detailed schedule of payments, you may want to look at the Transactions Report.
The bottom section of the activated view will show you specific numbers and settings for the loan setup.
Loan Terms
The first tab of the Loan Setup section is Loan Terms, which shows the main terms used to create the loan.
The the terms in this section include the following:
Term | Description |
Total Amount | The original loan amount. This does not include the Underwriting Fee. |
Interest Rate | The interest rate for the loan. This will include the interest rate frequency. |
Contract Date | This is the date the loan will start. |
First Payment Date | The date the first payment will come due on the loan. |
Discount | Any part of the Total Amount that wasn’t included in the funding check that will become revenue to the lender. |
Underwriting/Refinance Fee | Any origination, underwriting, or refinance fees applied to the loan. |
Payment Frequency | The frequency with which payments come due. |
Term | The number of payment periods in the loan. |
Escrow Calculator
The Escrow Calculator section displays the information you input into the escrow calculator in order to calculate your escrow adjustments.
The following information is available for each escrow bucket:
Escrow Bucket | Description |
Percentage Base | You can calculate total escrow as a percentage of one of the other loan numbers. The percentage base tells you which number you chose. |
Percentage | This is the percentage of the Percentage Base number that will equal the total escrow amount. |
Total | This is the total amount of escrow that will be paid over the life of the loan. You can change the amount by manually adding escrow adjustments or changing escrow settings. Pro-Rate 1st Period – If the first period is longer or shorter than a regular payment period, you can choose whether to adjust the escrow amount that will come due in the first period based on how long or short it is. |
Escrow Extend Final | If the loan term is extended for any reason, for example, the customer makes payments late or misses payments, you can choose whether escrow will still come due on payments that come due after the originally calculated loan term. |
Term | This is the original scheduled number of loan periods during which escrow will come due. |
Regular Period | This is the amount that will come due in escrow during a regular payment period. |
First Period | This is the amount of escrow that will come due in the first payment period. If you have chosen to prorate the first-period escrow amount, it may be different than the regular period escrow. |
Additional Information
The additional information section contains different information depending on the type of loan you're looking at (i.e. automobile, real estate, consumer, other). It can potentially contain any of the following:
Term | Description |
Net Amount Down | The down payment made on the purchase of the loan collateral. |
Sales Price | The sales price of the collateral. |
Taxes | The taxes paid on the purchase of the collateral. |
GAP Insurance | The amount paid for any Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) insurance on the loan collateral. |
Warranty | The amount paid for a warranty on the loan collateral. |
Dealer Profit | The amount the dealership made (gross profit) on the sale of the loan collateral. |
Reserve Amount | The amount held in reserve (part of the loan held back from the dealership) to insure against bad loans from a dealership. |
This section also contains loan custom fields.
Advanced Configuration
The Advanced Configuration section shows the advanced configuration settings chosen for the loan.
The available information for this tab includes:
Term | Description |
The type of the loan (i.e. installment, credit limit, flooring, lease) | |
The category of the loan (i.e. automobile, real estate, consumer, other). | |
The interest calculation type of the loan (i.e. simple interest, interest-only, rule of 78, simple interest locked). | |
Accounting-Discount Split | Whether discount income will be recognized over the life of the loan. |
The number of days on which interest should accrue in the first payment period of the loan. | |
The number of days in the year to use in interest calculations. | |
Beg/End | Whether interest should be calculated based on payments coming due at the beginning of the payment period or the end. |
The way interest should be calculated for early or late payments and how payments should apply to interest. | |
Round | The number of decimal places that numbers should be rounded to during loan calculations. |
If the calculated final payment date for a loan should be the actual final date of the loan. | |
First Day Interest | Whether interest should be accrued on the first day of the loan. |
Schedule Round | The dollar amount that will be rounded off the end of the payment schedule. |
A template that will define the dates of your flooring loan curtailments. | |
Suspend/Resume Interest | Whether interest should cease to accrue after the originally calculated final payment date of the loan. |
Choose whether payments should apply only to fees that were assessed on or before the payment date, or whether they should apply to any fees assessed in the same payment period even if they are in the future. | |
A template that will help define the schedule of payments. | |
Due on Business Days | If payments come due on non-business days, you can choose to have the system adjust them to come due either on the most recent previous business day or the next business day. |
When a payment is made, have it apply to the loan based on the actual date the payment is made, or on the furthest-in-the-past, missed payment date. | |
Choose whether the amount past due should be calculated as the amount that has come due minus the amount paid, or the amount of interest that has come due minus the amount of interest paid. |
Late Fee Configuration
This section show the selections made for automatic late fees on the loan.
The information available for this tab includes:
Term | Description |
Late Fee Type | This selection lets you specify when the late fee is assessed. |
Grace Period (Days) | The number of days after a payment comes due before a late fee comes due. |
Late Fee | The amount of the late fee. |
Late Fee Percentage Base | The number that the late fee percentage is based on. |
Buckets Added to Late Fee Percentage Base | If the late fee percentage base is the regular payment amount, you can specify if escrow adjustments should be included in that amount. |
Common Uses & Questions
Setup Terms can be really helpful when you need to quickly create a loan. Let's say that agent user, Joe, needs to create a loan, but he's really busy and needs to get it done quickly so he can move on to his next task. In order to successfully create the loan, he only needs to enter the minimum amount of information. Once that's done, he can go back to it later to enter additional information.
However, let's say that just as Joe has finished creating the loan, buy you decide to offer the borrower the same loan amount, but with smaller payments. Joe can easily go back into the Setup Terms to increase the term of the loan to allow for smaller payments from the borrower.
What is the bare minimum data needed create and calculate a loan?
The minimum amount of information that needs to be entered for a loan to be created are:
- loan amount
- contract date
- first payment date
- payment frequency
- interest rate
Can I set up a loan using the API?
Yes, you can use the API to set up a loan. For more information take a look at:
How do I ensure that my APR and interest rate meets the requirements of the law?
LoanPro allows you the option to create a Usury Alert which will alert you if your APR is too high. Since the usury laws are different depending on your state, this is something that must be set up manually. We also have an APR Targeting tool that lets you choose an APR amount and adjust the loan interest rate or escrow amount to get your loan as close to your chosen APR as possible.
Related Topics
If you found this article helpful, you might also be interested in the following articles:
- Setup Tools – this article goes over how to use the Setup Tools to make adjustments to a loan after it has been setup.
- Activated Loans – here, we cover the differences between an activated loan and an inactive one, which will have some bearing on how the Setup Terms screen appears for the loan.
- Loan Type – this article will give you an understanding of the differences between the loan types.
What’s Next
Now that you have an understanding of Setup Terms, you may want to learn more about the specifics of: